Celestia's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

At dawn Celestia stood at the edge of the valleys and saw no road. Only ridges stacked behind ridges, gray and endless. The girl waited three valleys east, sick and marked by the goddess. On foot it would take six days. The prophecy burned in Celestia's chest. She did not have six days. The dragon kitten climbed her shoulder and hid in her hair. A man leaned against a crooked post near the trailhead, peeling an apple with a thin knife. His brown jacket was patched at the elbows. Mud caked his boots. He watched her painted eyes and white hair and grinned as if he already knew her price. "You're the oracle," he said. "Walking east. Everyone's walking east lately." He flipped the knife shut. "I'm Darius Vale. The border threw me out for moving goods through places maps forget. Those places go east. Faster than any road." Celestia kept her distance. "Others seek the girl too. Maybe you work for them." "Maybe I work for coin." He shrugged. "But those others took the river path this morning. Slow. I can beat them, if you make it worth my trouble." She had no coin to match smugglers. She reached into her satchel and drew out the goddess's feather, soft and shining with pale light. Darius stopped chewing. She pulled out a second thing too, a jagged shard of mirror she carried to read truth in faces. She held it up to his eyes. "The glass shows lies," she said. "Tell me again who you serve." Darius stared at his own reflection in the broken surface. The shard caught the light in sharp, clean angles. His grin faded. "Coin," he said quietly. "Only coin. I swear it." The mirror did not darken. She lowered it. "Then take me east," Celestia said. "I cannot pay in gold. I can pay in this." She held out the feather. "A sacred thing. It will fetch more than any purse." Darius weighed the feather in his palm. He looked at the valleys, then at her. "Come on, then. Keep up. The paths don't wait." He led her off the trail and into a seam between two ridges, a crack too narrow to call a road. The ground dropped and climbed. They crossed a dry streambed, slid down loose stone, and pushed through a gap she would never have found alone. By noon they had crossed the first valley. By dusk, the second lay behind them. Celestia's legs shook, but the girl was close now, one valley away. At the top of the last ridge, Darius crouched and went still. Below, torches moved along the far slope. Riders. Many of them, climbing toward the same village. "Your others," Darius whispered. "They didn't take the river after all. And they've got horses." Celestia looked down at the lights. She had bought speed. It had bought her a race she was now losing.